ARTICLE: How to protect your car from THEFT

This is a discussion on ARTICLE: How to protect your car from THEFT within On owning a car, part of the Team-BHP Advice category; Originally Posted by ceejay123
Guys we can also use tire locks like this but I doubt if these are available ...

Setup would take time or research in the market. Get an 800 buck cheapo (or even a second hand one for that matter )and keep it in the car. Charge it periodically (will take less than an 20-30 minutes per week.)
Ahh! If only the cops would be fast enough to initiate investigations on the Mobile service provider side. If the theives detect the phone first then they get the phone free.

Now the real trouble is to hide the cell somewhere inside the car so that the thieves cannot find it easily. This would give us sometime to work with the cops to initiate the investigations.

Due to cheaper phones, May be a hidden device (GSM Phone) (powered from car battery and in-silent mode), which can be tracked, can be used.
May I invoke all the hardware engineers to come up to such installations, I am sure it will help everyone and everyone has a spare phone also.

This can be easily done with software.

A software can run on cell that sends "Base Station ID" to a fixed number every 30 mins via GPRS or SMS.

Basically this will tell the owner which tower cell was talking to. based on this, approx location can be identified.

EDIT : Even a cell phone is not required. There are GCM boards that are available for 1000 Rs that do not look like cell phones. Those are sturdy and are designed to be used in automobiles. A regular cell phone will go bust if left in a car that is parked in sun.

also a gps tracker also is a very efficient device to find out the position of your stolen vehicle.

Thats a brilliant idea for sure. Also, I believe there is an engine immobiliser which can be activated remotely to stop the thief while fleeing with the car. I remember seeing this for the first time about a decade ago in one of the auto expos.

However, this has gained more popularity with the cab/fleet agencies to track their vehicles that individual car owners. Members in the forum having this tracker with remotely activated immobiliser installed in their cars can throw more light on this.

besides routing vehicles to nepal via the porous bihar border for illegal sale and dismantling for usable parts, they are also used by tourist operators (especially those who are not recognised by the tourism board)

coming to remote security, i have heard of a company called Micro which install these in India. any unauthorised entry can be detected and the owner is sent a message (apparently whereever he/she is around the globe). on the receipt of such a message the owner can immobilize the vehicle remotely. you also have the option of fitting a tiny camera inside the vehicle.

Buy a market dud : Cars like the Fiat Palio, Ford Mondeo and Mitsubishi Cedia found few takers in the new car bazaar. Good news is, thanks to their dismal market performance, even fewer thieves are interested in these cars.

Great thread Dippy.

And the best advice is above. I will tell you how; I have Palio Stile 1.1, which is the least sold model. One night I parked it on street outside my house and forgot to put gear lock and door look too (happened second time with me, so careless). There are couples of other cars too right next to each other. In morning I heard the commotion outside and found one Santro eRLX was stolen which was parked right next to mine. My stereo and laptop was lying in car clearly visible, and door was not even locked. But from the situation I came to conclusion that those thieves haven’t even bothered to look at Stile, leave alone trying to open or steal anything from it.

So the dud model saved me Vitamin M and trouble. I was earlier planning to replace it this year, but now going to spend few more years with her without worries.

I think only cars parked inside the premises with the gates locked at night will ever be safe. If roadside parking for the night is unavoidable, ensure it is parked under a bright street light. If there is none located nearby, try and install a lamp on your own fence/compound wall at your own expense and park the car underneath. If it is an apartment block and there are a few more car owners, this can be organized more easily and expenses shared.

I am not sure how microchipping in puppies work. I am yet to inject the microchip in my puppy but I was told that microchip helps in identifyiing your pup if it is lost. It seems the micro chip has some transponer within which can be read by some reciever.

My point is, if a small pup can be made secure by using a microchip, why can't we use the same microchip in our car ? Inject the microchip in one of the seats or some other part and then can't we track the car ?

Well, I am not sure how the microchip can be read in case the puppy is lost, but if it is possible, then I think we should be able to do the same in our cars ? Am I stupid ?